Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Our early night must have been a good omen as we thought we were on the first shuttle run to the airport as so got up at 6, however at breakfast we were told otherwise... The morning seemed very strange as were all packing up and we all knew it was the last day but we didn't quite realise it, maybe subconciously we didn't want too. Tthe morning was speant in the TV room waiting to be shuttled off to the airport and as the numbers declined, realisation set in and the topic of home sprung up. We began to feel reluctant to leave as we had become such a close knit family. We chose to be on the last shuttle as once we got to the airport there was no going back.

Checking in our baggage was amusing and Alta airport does not believe in baggage weight limits as nobody had to pay for overweight baggage. At the gate we saw the first bit of TV which was Prince on some chatshow, we were blissfully unaware of his upcoming tour in London at this point. Alex and tasha realised that they had no emergency contacts in their passports leading them to fill in each others. Aboard the plane I sat next to two women who spoke to me. One had realised I was scottish and so spoke about Edinburgh and the other one was a Swedish women who was a nurse. We spoke about how I would love to do medicine but also love the arts. She used to have the same problem and but managed to find a medium by working abroad in disadvantaged areas. I loved having such an influential conversation with a stranger, but at the same time I was sickened by her ability to speak English compared to my nion exsistant Swedish/Norwegian. Thats just another thing I love about aviation, its a little bit romantic in that you can meet an influential stranger.

We landed in Oslo and were let loose in the airport until boarding, this meant one thing: SOUVENIER SHOP! There was no luck in the main airport so we had to go into international departures, the no going back zone. Thankfully through the mists of perfume there was a gift shop. Souvenier shopping for me is just buying a hoodie with Norway/Norge written all over it, I managed to stretch to a T-shirt too as I had more money than I thought, I suppose there is only so far you can get with a Visa in Arctic Norway... We headed up for food and it was between Pizza Hut and Upper Crust, the later of the two had the "upper" hand as I could have my first milkshake in four weeks.

Time flew by and before we knew it we were through passport control and the gate and on to the plane, which was practically empty. After a bit of seat switching and reuniting a family Gabby and I managed sit together for the final flight. We attempted reading a folk tale but managed to pick the longest one so gave up quite quickly, moreso because the food was coming. We used up the rest of our Kroner on Norgian food and drink and made some paper planes. Otherwise our time was spent saying how much we dind't want to go home underneath it all and we hoped Gabby's parents would forget my bad with my hotel reservations in it. Once we had landed there was an instant wierdness as we all headed to baggage reclaim as once they had their bags they all just seemed to disappear, but not until they were hugged at least twice by everyone (I even hugged Alistair and Callum...).

At Arrivals everyone disappeared into the arms of their parents, except me. But this didn't actually bother me one bit as I had my two adoptive parents there, Tasha's armed with a cheese and ham bagette and Gabby's who did not have my hotel reservation so I had to head back to theirs and decided it was probably easiest if I just stayed there. However at the airport something hit me and I just burst into tears, I was the only one aswell and probably not one of the expected bawlers of the group. I want to think it was because I realised I wasn't going to see these guys every day again.

Back at Gabby's I met her twin Holly who had run us a bath and gave us razors and chocolate. Gabby and I spent ages updating her family and I spent even more time catching up with...eh Facebook. Getting to sleep in a real bed was surprisingly difficult and the darkness didn't help but it was nice to see the stars again.